Tuesday, 22 February 2011

A major Watercolour exhibition has started at Tate Britain which invites you to " challenge your preconceptions of what Watercolour is ". I wont have a problem with that as I love Watercolours and have seen it in many varied forms, so I am looking forward to seeing this exhibition. If you visit the Tate website there are a couple of great Tate Shots videos of artists Callum Innes and John Squire talking about and showing how they use Watercolour.
And here are some pictures of my own Watercolour set which is quite old and used to belong to my brother before he gave it to me, I like the way it has a bit of history and a narrative of it's own.

Wednesday, 16 February 2011

I am a fan of Rae Dunn on Facebook and yesterday I received a post about her work being featured by style creative Simone Le Blanc inc, so I thought I would check this out. From this I visited their blog and came across two artists work that I thought deserved a post. The first is Fredericks and Mae and these lovely hand crafted arrows made from wood, thread, feathers, gold and silver.

The second is artist Dan Bennett who studied at Leeds University and now lives and works in Bristol. His paintings are a kaleidoscope of colour and patterns inspired by prehistoric symbols.

Monday, 14 February 2011

Another artists studio and work that I enjoy is that of Ken Spooner, an artist who resists classification by pushing his work outside the natural boundaries of painting. His paintings are more like objects that have a life of their own, he uses lots of different media layering and layering and layering and then removing like an archaeologist

Monday, 7 February 2011

Continuing with my look at artists studio spaces I have found a few videos that are really interesting. I love listening to artists talking about there work and to also see were it is made is very fascinating to me. Over the next few weeks I will post some videos of the artists that are amongst my favourites, the first is artist Naomi Frears who has a studio at the beautiful Porthmeor Studios in St Ives.

Friday, 4 February 2011

There are two exciting new Art Galleries opening this year, the first which opens on the 16th April 2011 is Turner Contemporary in Margate, situated on Margate's sea front, both galleries have been designed by architect David Chipperfield. Victoria Pomery director of Turner Contemporary announced that
" Turner Contemporary's purpose is to stretch the boundaries of current visual arts practise, to make the exhibitions sufficiently varied and to bridge the gap between the historical and contemporary".

The Hepworth

The Hepworth in Wakefield opens on the 21st May 2011 and will help turn Yorkshire into one of the most significant destinations for Sculpture, and the largest purpose-built gallery outside London. Even though Turner is one of my favourite artists, The Hepworth is the one I am most excited about. According to their website, " the collection displays will provide a fascinating context with works by Hepworth's contemporaries, including Ben Nicholson, Graham Sutherland, Paul Nash, Patrick Heron and international artists such as Piet Mondrian, Constantin Brancusi and Alberto Giacometti".

Wednesday, 2 February 2011

Another famous studio which is still in use today by current practising artists are the Porthmeor Studios in St Ives. The building dates back to the 1800s and was the centre of the pilchard industry, in the 1880s artists started to flock to St Ives, in need of studio space they decided to build on top of the fishermen's cellars. Former tenants of the studio include Ben Nicholson, Patrick Heron and Frances Bacon.
Today the building is still used by fishermen and artists and is also home of the St Ives School of Painting, however the building is in a very fragile state and is currently undergoing major renovation. Some artists that currently work in the studios today are Naomi Frears, Luke Frost and Richard Nott.